Squirrely

Good morning, my friends. It's a sure sign spring is on the way when the squirrels make an appearance. Interestingly, I'd posted on Facebook last year that the squirrels made their first appearance on the very same day in 2024. They must keep little squirrel calendars that remind them when it's time to poke their heads above ground. And they are fat! I have an idea these are pregnant females.

Because what we really need around here are more squirrels. We'll be traveling for a good part of the summer, and so they're going to have the run of the place. Hopefully, they won't gnaw the house down to the foundation while we're gone.

If you're wondering about the bucket in that image above, it's covering up the new daphne we planted last year. They don't do well in freezing temperatures, and so we covered it up this year. The bright white bucket still lets in plenty of light, and there's no problem getting enough water from our saturated landscape. 

Below, they've already discovered they're favorite job of cleaning up the bird seed that falls to the ground. They'll wear a path in the grass in no time.

Back inside, Sadie and I went to work sewing the Kittens blocks together. This might be her favorite quilt ever.

She kept a close eye on everything I did. She appurroves of this background fabric.

Just to be sure, she gave it a pre-quilt snuggleability test. 

It passed. And then she helped me square up the edges of the fabric for cutting. (It's a good way to lose your whiskers.)

So, I laid the blocks out, attempting a good distribution of the colors.

I gave them a wide sashing. When the first row was sewn together, it gave me an idea.

What if I offset the blocks row by row? I think that might improve on the "floating" appearance I was going for. And so I cut some extra sashings and then laid them all out together.

And I kind of like that. When I make so many embroidered quilts, they're often set with sashings and cornerstones. Sometimes patterns come with ideas for sewing them together differently. When they don't, I try to come up with something more imaginative, but I can't always think of anything. So, this seemed like enough of a deviation from the norm to give it some visual interest.

Sadie was so excited she tried to wrap up in the quilt before I'd even finished sewing it all together.

When all the rows were sewn together, I just needed to add the horizontal sashings.

And it was nearing a finish when I decided to stop for the day. I want to add one more wide border around the outside, and I'll have a finished flimsy.

That will be today's effort. I believe I have enough of the background fabric to make a quilt back. If not, I have my eye on another cat fabric I can use.

When that's finished, I'll move on to the next project on my white board...quilting the Snow Happens table runner. It's getting late in the season to be doing wintery quilts, but it'll be ready for next year's winter.

I'm pretty sure I know what to do with this. It'll be something having to do with snow. Probably, I'll use a sparkly white metallic thread, but I haven't given it much thought yet.

Okay, so it's a Bowflex day, and it's a sunny day. The kitties are itching to get outside. There be squirrels out there, doncha know. We make them wait a while in the morning until it warms up some. It saves us some openings and closings of the door as they go in and out, in and out, in and out.

Breakfast is finished. Slow stitching is next. What's going on in your sewing room today?